Dried fruits, such as raisins, can be difficult to handle in bulk, because the fruit tends to stick together to form large blocks. Blocking of such fruits is particularly problematical in the case of large scale production of combination food products, where a measured amount of a dried fruit is added to other components (such as in the manufacture of ready to eat cereals). When the dried fruit component is delivered to the assembly line suffering from blocking, steps must be taken to separate or “delump” the aggregated fruit before it can be added to other ingredients or otherwise manipulated. Conventionally, dried fruits are delumped by hand screening, or use of a machine. An apparatus for separating blocks of dried fruit is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,086 and also in U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,704. Care must be taken to avoid damaging of the fruit in such deagglomeration operations.
Various solutions have been attempted in order to solve this blocking problem. While improvements can be achieved simply by refrigerating the fruit, this approach is quite costly and does not work very effectively. Coatings have been used on raisins, in particular, in order to prevent blocking. For example, raisins have been coated with sucrose, but this product has been subject to complaints regarding unattractive appearance. Further, the flavor of the raisins is noticeably changed due to the sucrose coating and the added sugar. Raisins have been coated with glycerol by spraying or by immersion in order to keep the raisins soft and pliable. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,853,151). A process for improving the bulk handling, transportation and processing of raisins is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,824, wherein raisins are coated with glycerine and oil to enhance bulk handling, transportation and processing. U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,287 describes an alternative approach, whereby dried fruits are stated to have improved handling and physical properties by coating the fruits with a finely divided, specially prepared calcium citrate reaction product.